


Enough

by cptxrogers



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Tony Stark, Asexuality, Early in Canon, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7650064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptxrogers/pseuds/cptxrogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Asexuality</i>. The word gave him pause. It felt strange to name the absence of a desire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely set in the early 616, but there's some MCU influence in there too.

It had started, Tony thought, with that damned chest plate. When he'd decided to dedicate his life to something more than himself, to be something more. In all honesty is was a snap decision, made of emotion more than logic. It was the right thing to do, and all questions about how he would actually achieve it were secondary. He would never claim not to be impulsive.

But he'd quickly realized that the practicalities would make or break his burgeoning hero career. He needed to be serious about his secret identity. He couldn't let anyone know he was Iron Man, no matter what. That was for their benefit as well as his own, it was safer that way, it was better for everyone.

So he began his double life: millionaire industrialist by day, flying superhero by whatever other time he was needed. It was hard, deceiving Pepper and Happy and everyone else, but he knew it was necessary.  

The problem was the chest plate, that maddening, painful hunk of metal that kept his heart going. He couldn't take it off, and it wasn't easy to hide. So he made a decision: no intimate romances. No chance that anyone would discover his secret, or that he would have to see the look of repulsion on anyone's face when they saw the scarred mass of his chest. No girlfriends, no flings. No problems.

 

* * *

 

Actually, that wasn't strictly true. It had started much earlier than that. It had begun, as most problems in Tony's life did, with Howard.

When Tony was dragged along to society parties to perform the role of dutiful son, he had usually ferreted out the other children in attendance pretty quickly. It was something of a rarity for him to actually meet other children, and the novelty pulled him in. When he found girls his age, when he introduced himself and complemented them on their dresses, they gave him innocent smiles and then they would be fast friends for the evening. This was one of the first lessons Tony learned at society events. Make them like you. Smile, complement, laugh. Perform for the crowd. Their wishes are relevant, not yours. Tony would see Howard looking on, judging his performance.

On those occasions where a girl was particularly warm to Tony, Howard looked pleased. No, not pleased. Howard never looked pleased when he was looking at Tony. But in those moments, he would seem satisfied, somehow, or at least less dissatisfied than usual. Girls liked Tony, and Howard liked that.

(It wasn't until much, much later than Tony realized that the look he had been observing on Howard's face was not pride, but something much more like self-recognition. It was the same look that Howard got whenever he saw his name in print, or on the side of a building. _I made this. It's me. It's all mine_.)

 

* * *

 

Tony had quickly realized that his policy against intimacy might have been a sensible one, but it was rather against type. It made people uncomfortable to think about a millionaire who wasn't living a wildly romantic life, apparently. _That's just how men are,_ he heard over and over. _Especially the rich ones! Boys will be boys._ On the third party which he attended without a date after becoming Iron Man, he spent 90 percent of the evening discussing his thrilling bachelor status. He decided that something had to be done. He would have to find a way to assuage suspicions.

Fortunately, spinning rumors and cementing a reputation as a playboy turned out to be easier than he anticipated. He could turn up to any event, pick a woman out of the crowd, make a show of dancing with her, and the next day the papers would be full of tales of his romantic exploits. Sometimes women even spread whispers themselves – people loved to talk about how they'd been seduced by the famous Tony Stark. If it kept his secret identity safe, he was fine with that.

And it was no great hardship, spending an evening dancing with a beautiful woman. He liked the way that society women knew how to carry a conversation, and how to carry themselves, exuding an elegant sophistication which Tony admired. It was smooth, comfortable, easy.

 

* * *

 

Later, he'd discovered that his charms were equally effective on men. There was a sort of code to this, when it wasn't fully accepted for men to be together: eye contact, look away, look back. Hands lingering a little longer than usual. A way of dressing, of walking. He learned the moves and added them to his repertoire.

Howard would have been appalled, Tony thought smugly.

 

* * *

 

Henry was a gift, he really was. When he'd first met Henry Hellrung, famed actor, portraying Tony Stark in his popular TV show, Tony had laughed to hide his horror. Here was the man who played his fictional life, who took his name and made him into a character. Henry could play at being Tony Stark for a few hours and then take off the costume and be free of it. Tony had never felt so envious in his entire life.

Once the awkwardness of their first meeting had passed, Tony was surprised to discover that he actually liked Henry very much. He was good company, good fun, and a good person to be seen out with. One drunken celebrity passed out in the street was just sad, but two of them together was evidence of a night well spent. Tony would liked to have been able to blame his drinking on Henry – on how he'd always keep their glasses topped up and how he'd never turn down plans for the next bar to hit – but Tony knew that, really, he'd have been slamming back whiskey whether he was out on the town or alone at home. This way, at least he had company.

Despite his Hollywood swagger, Henry was no idiot, and it didn't take him long to clock that Tony's flirtations with women never went anywhere. He'd asked about it, late one night they were passing in some hideous sticky dive bar that was the only place still open after the classier bars in town had closed for the night. Tony had mumbled something about how he didn't work that way, it was hard to explain, he liked women just fine but sleeping with them was complicated. Henry had nodded solemnly, and shared that he had occasionally had trouble performing with women after he'd been drinking too. Tony had tried to explain that wasn't what he meant, but Henry just kept tapping the side of his nose and cheerfully slurring that Tony's secret was safe with him.

Over the next few months, stories of Tony's romantic exploits continued to swirl, now bolstered by occasional blurry photos of what appeared to be Tony and a succession of women behaving somewhat inappropriately in public. When Tony had wondered aloud about this mysterious good fortune to Henry, Henry had given him a wide grin and told him that he was lucky to have a ruggedly handsome double who was willing to take one for the team.

When the gossip columns grew bored of that and started speculating about the possibility of relationship between Tony and Henry themselves, Tony had wondered. Maybe the reason that he was uninterested in sex was that he was just not interested in women that way? Maybe the papers were right, and there was something between him and Henry? They had kissed, once, in the midst of a long and particularly messy night on the town. But all Tony remembered feeling was a wave of panic and repulsion as he looked into eyes that were so like his; at this man who was so like him in appearance but so much less broken that him. Tony didn't want to be with Henry, he wanted to be him. Life would be so much easier if he could take his Tony Stark costume off too.

(Years later, after they've both been through recovery, Tony finds Henry again. He's got the same wide smile and bright eyes, but he's lost the manic energy that propelled them into wild bouts of drinking, replaced by a solemnity which Tony respects. A few times, when he's desperate for a drink, he calls Henry and he comes round and they sit together on Tony's too-big couch watching trashy late night TV, talking mostly about nothing. One night as he's falling asleep on the couch, Tony feels a blanket being pulled over him and a gentle kiss pressed to his forehead. He feels, in that moment, deeply cared for, and it's better than all of the extravagant nights out he barely remembers put together.)

 

* * *

 

The thing was, as he grew into a teenager, Tony really did like spending time with girls – hearing about their lives and their ideas, them teaching him games and rhymes and helping him out when he forgot which fork he was supposed to use for the fish course. But more than that, from observing the careful interactions of young women learning to navigate a delicate social space, he learned how to host an occasion, how to make others feel comfortable, and how to make every single person in a room feel wanted and involved.

He liked girls a lot. But not, he suspected, in the way that he was supposed to like them. Girls had kissed him, sometimes, and that seemed strange. Sweet, in a way, but strange. He had the impression that there was something important that he was missing whenever adult men would wink at him and call him a _charmer_ or a _little ladies' man_. They seemed to approve, but Tony just felt confused.

 

* * *

 

Tiberius Stone had seemed like so much fun, at first. School had been a lonely experience for Tony, and when the swaggering, cocky Ty had joined his class, Tony had detected what felt like a kindred spirit – someone who could keep up with him in school classes and keep him company the rest of the time. Some who would get it.

Tony always was a lousy judge of character.

Ty had smugly informed him that _real men_ didn't spent their time smiling at girls and helping them with science projects and asking about their interests. _Real men_ knew hot to get what they wanted. You got girls to like you, then you got girls to sleep with you, and then you won. Simple as that.

Tony couldn't imagine what was so great about sex that it was worth tricking someone into doing it with you. He'd told that to Ty, who had laughed in his face and called him a pussy who obviously didn't have the balls to keep up with the big boys.

It had taken Tony a long time to realize just how wrong Ty was. If being a _real man_ involved cruelty, manipulation, and treating sex as half achievement, half punishment, then Tony was glad to be failing at it. Eventually when the pain of betrayal had faded, whenever he saw Ty at some awful event or other, after the first wave of shame and guilt receded Tony would feel a swell of pity for this man, trapped in a prison of toxic expectations which he had built for himself.

 

* * *

 

On the first day he'd arrived at MIT, Tony had fought off a constant string of panic attacks. Aged seventeen, with far too much brain and far too little experience, he was let loose into the seething social quagmire of college. He'd never felt so acutely and profoundly out of place before.

And then he'd met his roommate, Rhodey. Older, focused, confident, and with a wicked streak a mile wide, Rhodey had bundled him up with a warmth that was infectious and taken him on a whistle-stop tour of the campus, explained all the social rules to him, and introduced him to what seemed to be the entire campus, who he had somehow already gotten to know. Tony had been instantly enchanted.

After a few months of chaotic mornings before class and sneaking into frat parties that they both hated at night, Rhodey and Tony were inseparable. Sharing a room, however, was not without its awkwardnesses. Tony learned to make himself scarce when Rhodey occasionally brought home girls from parties, or more often from classes. After a while, once it had become apparent that Rhodey was not going to need to return the favor and clear out for Tony's sake any time soon, he had brought it up in conversation and Tony had a moment of white-out panic.

“It's cool, you know,” Rhodey had said quickly, seeing Tony's rising alarm, and addressing him with equal parts affection and seriousness. “If you don't like girls, or sex, or whatever. You do you, Tones. You don't have anything to prove to me.”

Tony had felt something uncurl in his chest; a tightness he didn't even realize had been causing him pain until it suddenly loosened.

 

* * *

 

When Tony had first imagined his new career in superheroing, a team had never been part of the plan. Getting that many strong personalities to agree on anything seemed difficult, with far too many complications. But then he'd met the Avengers, and they had needed somewhere to stay, and it wasn't like he was short on space. So he opened up his home to them, just as a tactical headquarters at first – a place to meet when they needed to discuss team business.

He didn't expect anything in return. He was just their funder, the eccentric millionaire with cash to spare. They didn't even know he was Iron Man, not for a long time. Why would they care about some clueless rich kid playboy? Which is why it stopped him short every time he'd walk into his kitchen to find Jan excitedly waving him over to look at her latest fashion designs, or Thor cheerfully inquiring if he “Would care to share a cup of this delicious caffeinated beverage?” He'd take the proffered mug with a smile, even though Thor made frankly dreadful coffee.

 

* * *

 

And then there was Rumiko. Beautiful, charming, energetic Ru. He would have followed her anyway, off on her adventures. He loved that she wasn't in any way awed by him; that she laughed when he said something stupid; that she got in his face when she disagreed with him. He loved her deeply and with a warmth that he'd never suspected himself to be capable of.

He loved her, but he didn't want her. Or rather, he did want her, in his house and in his space and in his life. But not in his bed. Sex was expected in a relationship, of course he knew that, and it was what she seemed to want. He could do that for her. Sex was... fine, he supposed. It was okay. Not as interesting as building or designing or inventing or arguing, but fine. He'd always suspected that everyone felt like that, really, but they put on the performance anyway because that was just what you did. Ru had stared at him blankly when he'd tried to broach the subject.

When he discovered that she had slept with Ty, Tony had wondered if he had been the reason why. Perhaps sex was just not the same with him. Perhaps she'd sensed his reticence. She deserved more than that. She deserved someone who wanted her in the way she wanted to be wanted. He couldn't find it in himself to be angry at her.

After she'd died, Tony had found plenty of anger. At The Mandarin, at Ru, at himself. He wondered if it could have turned out differently. If he'd been different. If he'd been normal. Maybe she would still be here.

 

* * *

 

They always left in the end, and Tony knew in his bones that it was his fault. He was too cold, too distant, too hard to know. He couldn't tell whether it was because of the sex of just because of him, but they seemed like symptoms of the same fundamental problem.

He can't blame them for leaving. He wouldn't want to be with him either.

 

* * *

 

Tony employed his usual coping strategy of locking himself in his workshop, ignoring everyone's calls, and refusing to eat anything that wasn't in liquid form. Sometimes his emotional avoidance led him to a grand new idea or to finally conquering a project which he'd been ignoring. Right now, though, he was achieving nothing except hitting innocent pieces of armor with a heavy rubber mallet.

“If I may interrupt, sir, it would appear that your attentions are not producing the desired effect of improving flight stabilization. Perhaps a new approach is in order.” Jarvis' electronic tones floated down from the ceiling of the workshop.

Tony set the mallet down with a sigh, knowing that Jarvis was right. “It's just... after Rumiko...” he trailed off, fighting back a wave of misery. “I wish that I could have found a way to give her what she needed. I wish I could have been enough for her. It's not fair for me to be this way, Jarvis. It's not normal.”

“May I say, sir, that is not strictly correct. Asexuality has been an observed facet of human sexuality for as long as the concept of sexuality has existed. As an exemplar, Alfred Kinsey, considered by many to be the father of modern sexology, recorded asexuality as an observed phenomenon when he was researching his influential Kinsey scale. Throughout different cultures and time periods, there has always been a minority of the population who demonstrated no interest in sexual intercourse.”

Tony fingers stilled from where they had been drumming restlessly on the workbench. _Asexuality_. The word gave him pause. It felt strange to name the absence of a desire.

“You are not alone in this, sir.”

Tony sat uncharacteristically quietly for a few moments, turning concepts of sexuality and identity over in his head.“Hey, Jarvis?” he eventually asked gently.

“Sir?”

“Thanks.”

“You are most welcome, sir.”

 

* * *

 

He'd tried to talk to Pepper. He didn't want to deceive her; she was owed the full truth from him after everything she had put up with. He'd tried to frame the conversation in as neutral a way as he could. _He liked her very much. He thought she was beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have her. But he wasn't comfortable with sex. It didn't feel right to him. He understood if a relationship like that wouldn't work for her._

She looked at him through tear-filled eyes and gave him a watery smile. “Oh, Tony,” she'd said. “That's fine, I would never want to make you uncomfortable. I get that it must be hard for you,” and her she reached out her hand to ghost across the light from his arc reactor, “because of the trauma.”

And that wasn't right, not really, but it was the closest he'd heard to acceptance, and he burst into pathetically grateful sobs.

Afterwards, when Pepper had eventually left too, he'd wondered again if it was because of him. Would it have helped, if he could have been with her in that way? Would she have stayed?

Pepper had Happy now, and everything would be okay. She and Happy were both here, with him, a part of his life. That was enough, he kept telling himself. That had to be enough.

 

* * *

 

When Rhodey had introduced him to his new girlfriend, Carol, the adoring look they shared with each other had made Tony's heart momentarily spike with jealously. But then Carol had opened her mouth, and she was off, telling tales of Rhodey's heroism, and the ridiculousness of military life, and her job as an airforce Captain – or _zookeeper of the squadron_ as she'd described herself with a wink – and Tony decided very quickly that she was all right by him. He'd told her so, and Rhodey looked visibly relieved.

Carol beamed at him. “Oh, you're cute! You'd be such a hit with the airforce ladies. Say that you'll let me introduce you to my squad some time?”

“No thanks,” he'd said, a little too quickly. “That's not what I'm looking for.”

“I thought that was what everyone was looking for. Don't you want to meet a nice girl?” Carol had asked, genuinely curious. “Or a nice man? With all the hard work that you and Rhodey do, I'd have thought you'd want a partner to complete the superhero lifestyle you've built here.”

“I used to think so too. But I've got my team, and my friends, and my suits, and my company,” he said, only realizing the truth as it came out of his mouth. “I feel like I'm doing some good in the world. I don't feel incomplete.”

 

* * *

 

The roster changed, members came and went, but somewhere along the way, the Avengers team had become his family. As if he hadn't been bursting with glee at the idea of repurposing the tower and designing individual living spaces for all of them. Plenty of entertainment for Clint, plenty of light for Steve, and plenty of privacy for Natasha. Tony still felt uncomfortable hovering around tedious discussions of tactics, and he chafed at being ordered around by anyone, but he fell in love with the team fast and hard. He wanted them to know that they were welcome, that they had a place with him. But he had no idea how to express that in words without wanting the earth to swallow him whole, so instead he built them rooms.

Miracle of miracles, each of the Avengers eventually ended up living in the tower, and it felt like it was meant to be that way. Collapsed on the giant sofas after a long but not particularly dangerous battle with an army of Doombots, Tony sprawled across Thor's chest and dropped his feet into Jan's lap with a sideways grin. Jan made disgusted noises as she eyed his socks, but stroked her hand down his feet anyway. Some angelic force had brought forth pizza (he was thinking that would have been Sam, who was persistently keen on keeping everyone fed). As they were handing out slices, Steve popped his head round the door, apparently finished with his adorably contentious post-mission report writing.

“Nice work today, Shellhead,” Steve said, coming over to ruffle Tony's hair affectionately with one hand and then to steal his pizza slice with the other while Tony feigned outrage.

It felt like it was worth something. It felt like enough. What more could he want from life than this?

**Author's Note:**

> Big love to all my fellow aces out there. You are enough <3
> 
> If you want to know more about asexuality, try [AVEN](http://www.asexuality.org/home/).
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://cptxrogers.tumblr.com/) and this story is cross-posted [here](http://cptxrogers.tumblr.com/post/148310212884/fic-enough).


End file.
